2.11.2016

Review: Spelled by Betsy Schow

Spelled by Betsy Schow

Fairy Tale Survival Rule #32: If you find yourself at the mercy of a wicked witch, sing a romantic ballad and wait for your Prince Charming to save the day.

Yeah, no thanks. Dorthea is completely princed out. Sure being the crown princess of Emerald has its perks—like Glenda Original ball gowns and Hans Christian Louboutin heels. But a forced marriage to the brooding prince Kato is so not what Dorthea had in mind for her enchanted future.

Talk about unhappily ever after.

Trying to fix her prince problem by wishing on a (cursed) star royally backfires, leaving the kingdom in chaos and her parents stuck in some place called "Kansas." Now it's up to Dorthea and her pixed off prince to find the mysterious Wizard of Oz and undo the curse...before it releases the wickedest witch of all and spells The End for the world of Story.

First Line: "Stupid princes," I mutter as I stalked down the green-flecked quartz-and-marble hallway.Review: Okay, you all know I am guilty of judging a book by its cover and that was the case with Spelled. Beautiful cover, a re-telling of Wizard of Oz I had very high hopes for it, I wanted this book to be fantastic and epic in every way! Unfortunately, when you spend the whole book hating the main character it's impossible to even have a "like" for the book.

The book starts off with Dorthea's selfishness. She doesn't want to own up to her responsibilities as Princess so she makes a wish to make things go her way and literally turns her whole world into chaos. Even after that, all she cares about is her. She was a spoiled brat, I mean the biggest brat I have ever met and I was hoping for some major character growth but the most I saw was an inkling of growth here and there not much. If it wasn't for the characters around her I would have easily marked Spelled as a DNF but thanks to Prince Kato (who literally spends the majority of the book as a chimera) and Rexi the servant I wouldn't even be giving it the two stars that I am.

I also found the world building a bit lacking and overall very little character development. Things are very over the top in Spelled, I don't know how else to describe it and honestly, I think it would have worked but I couldn't get past my hatred for the main character to enjoy much of anything else.

I guess the more I think about it the one thing I did like was the puns in the book I liked the creativity of it but even that eventually became overkill with the over usage of it throughout the book especially when it came from the mouth of Dorthea. Sorry as you can see I just had a really big issue with her and still can't get past it.

Overall obviously, this book wasn't for me.

Memorable Quotes:

~"That's the thing about love: the best kind isn't easy or instant, and you often get roughed up a bit on the way."

~"Because a cage is still a cage, no matter how big or glittering the bars are."

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